This article describes the shift in the role of libraries in the 21st century and the corresponding shift in the design and use of the physical library space. With increasing access to technology in schools, students no longer need the library simply as an archive of information.

Hyperconnected. Always on. These terms have been invented to describe the environment created when people are linked continuously through tech devices to other humans and to global intelligence. Teens and young adults have been at the forefront of the rapid adoption of the mobile internet and the always-on lifestyle it has made possible.

One of my favorite things on the internet is Crash Course, a free, high-quality educational YouTube channel that offers “crash courses” on science, math, history, literature, philosophy, and so much more. The channel’s latest project is a 12-week miniseries all about media literacy. Hosted by Jay Smooth, the series aims to give viewers “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.” It’s hard to think of a more relevant tool to have in our current political and cultural climate. The series officially launches next, but here’s a preview video of everything it’s going to cover:

George Siemens and Stephen Downes are the main proponents of the Connectivism Theory, which suggests that online networks and resources play a vital role in the learning experience. It also delves into the significance of social interactions and their impact on our behaviors and cognitions in a virtual context. According to Siemens and Downes, learning involves a series of nodes and connections. The nodes represent information, emotions, learning materials, and other essential components. An online learner must be able to link these individual nodes to expand or enhance their network.

"The truth is, most educators face an innovation stand-off between the naysayers who fear change, regardless of the latest research on the future world of work and personalized learning benefits. We need good learning management systems to help navigate scaling implementation for the masses."

At the age of 46 I gave up reading writing; literary writing – prose, novels. Despite having been a teacher of creative writing in primary schools, a novel writer and a children’s literature programmer, I’d grown bored of pages with just words on them.

"So-called educational technology targets children from infancy and provides a convenient way for parents to feel good about using media in the early childhood years. Television programs and videos claim to be a parent’s answer to “what should my baby be learning?” and since such programming is developed by experts who certainly know more than the average parent about child development, these marketing ploys are accepted."

"Furthermore, active technology, like using a computer or tablet for toddler learning activities, can foster academic disengagement by making the learning process too easy. If a two-year-old thinks the answer is always the touch of a screen away, he or she won’t learn to search for answers or show his or work. What parents today view as learning improvements from their own childhood are actually modern conveniences that devalue the pursuit of knowledge."

As an educator, you might be tired of receiving work from your learners with incorrect information from unreliable sources and websites. You might also be weary of them hitting the first link on their Google search as the extent of their research, or using Wikipedia as their only source for information. If this is you, have no fear because Information Fluency skills are the answer.

Mary Zdrojewski was in for a surprise. Not long ago, the librarian in the Scio (NY) Central School District had been assigned a class of teens at her K–12 school. Zdrojewski asked the students what they wanted from their library class, expecting to hear requests for coding, robotics, or hands-on projects. “They just wanted me to read aloud to them,” Zdrojewski recalls. “I tried short stories, including the ‘Guys Read’ series, because I thought they would be ‘cool.’” But she soon discovered that “the students really wanted pictures to look at.”

Picture books and older students: More educators are making this match in their teaching, with significant success. While graphic and illustrated novels gain traction among teen and tween readers, traditional picture books hold a place of their own and provide versatile, effective teaching tools for a range of students. The ubiquity of social media might explain why today’s youth are particularly visually oriented, but that’s only part of the picture, says Wendy Lukehart, youth collections coordinator at the District of Columbia Public Library’s Penn Center. “People of all ages have always responded well to pictures,” she says. For centuries, she notes, humans spent quite a bit of time gazing at art, and, in the 20th century, flipping through photography-centric magazines, such as Life, to engage with current events and culture.

One of the major criticisms of this method though is that a dull unengaging content doesn't suddenly become engaging because it's on a video on the web, so how do we get students to engage with the content and make sure they watch it in a challenging and interactive way.

Vialogues is a useful tool for attempting to do this (though dull content will always be dull) because it enables you to create interaction around the video that actually gets students to think about and engage with the content.

"The first thing you notice about Portfolio School — a new micro-school in downtown New York City that’s preparing to welcome its first class of students in a couple weeks — is its floor plan. Inside this Tribeca outpost, there are no long corridors lined with water fountains or bulletin boards, no enclosed classrooms with fixed rows of desks facing chalkboards.

"Instead, this 2,500-square-foot site is a single sprawling room; an open space that has the look and feel of a loft apartment. And it’s this space that will serve as the backdrop for one of the city’s newest education experiments — a private school built around project-based learning, mixed-age classes, lessons that cut across subject areas and no homework.

"Drawing from the increasingly popular micro-school trend, in which fewer students are placed in each class to foster individualized instruction, the inaugural class at Portfolio School will consist of only eight kids, students ranging in age between 5 and 9. The mission for year one: Hone and refine a more holistic classroom approach that breaks down a rigid structure that some say has limited innovation in public education. “This will be an environment where creativity and uncertainty are embraced,” says Shira Leibowitz, Portfolio’s Lower School Director."

In today’s post we are sharing with you 5 math apps that are featured today in Apple’s New and Notable category in iTunes App Store. Some of you are probably already familiar with Photomath and Math 42 for we have already covered them in multiple instances here in the past. Students can draw on them to get help with their math homework. The three remaining apps (Quick Maths, MathX, and Zebra Math) are featured here for the first time. You may want to try them out and see if they can be of any help for your students.

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